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Twilio employees, associates charged with insider trading by SEC

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Re: Twilio employees, associates charged with insider trading by SEC

#281

Post by Bedon292 »

harry8 wrote: post #262
Bedon292 wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have to disclose when family members make the trades, as shown by the article you posted. So its not really clever when it still gets disclosed. And something like having a spouse do the trades certainly isn't either. That's easy for the SEC to check too. But what evidence is there that any of that is trading on non public information? I just lists off some of the most popular companies out there to invest in. T…

Pelosi knows whether google are going to have a whole bunch of very expensive anti-monopoly regulation get up. She might even influence that. Her assessment of the prospects of competing regulation is non-public and could change when she has a shower. She is right in the non-public information /by/ /definition/. And when she says she won't let her family financial interests affect her judgement do you believe that? I…

I totally agree that they shouldn't trade stocks. Put it in a blind trust or something. There is all sorts of bias there in regulations or lack thereof. But what you have still not presented is evidence that inside information has actually been used to make those trade. Is it possible? Absolutely. But where is the proof behind your accusations? I have yet to see anyone produce actual proof, just speculation.

Trading on information from a private meeting with a CEO is textbook insider trading, and whoever does that absolutely can get charged for that.

Now if someone were to know they are about to introduce major legislation to regulate tech companies, and trades on that information before doing so. That absolutely is wrong, and should be illegal. But unfortunately it isn't. And I doubt they will actually end up regulating themselves.

Re: Twilio employees, associates charged with insider trading by SEC

#282

Post by f7ebc20c97 »

bidirectional wrote: post #91
daenz wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I bet insider trading is not as fun when you're unemployed and bankrupt. Not just unemployed, likely unemployable by any reputable company in the industry. Also, good on you for having integrity, but honestly what you say is too much for the average person to be tempted with. Does anyone have a solution for lowering that temptation and making these scenarios less likely?

Legalising insider trading is the simplest solution.

Drug dealers are highly opposed to drug legalization.

Re: Twilio employees, associates charged with insider trading by SEC

#283

Post by f7ebc20c97 »

purple_ferret wrote: post #49

Interestingly (based on their linkedin profiles), they were promoted after the event. Some of the friends listed even got jobs within Twilio. One even works at Google. Might not the first time they've made such moves; just perhaps the boldest.

Real straight shooters with upper management written all over them.

Re: Twilio employees, associates charged with insider trading by SEC

#285

Post by labcomputer »

jdmichal wrote: post #177
mgfist wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many companies, and (most?) tech companies have trading black out periods that are lifted for about a month a few days after earnings. It applies to your personal brokerage account too, even though they can't technically enforce it.

I worked at a bank. They 100% had access to my personal brokerage accounts. It was a condition of employment.

Yes, banks do that. Many even prohibit employees to have personal brokerage accounts at other banks (How does that work for a married couple that work for different banks? There are exceptions which require additional disclosures, like submitting you spouse's and/or minor child's monthly statements within some short time frame).

Banks are the exception. Very, very few not-a-bank companies do that.

Re: Twilio employees, associates charged with insider trading by SEC

#286

Post by tharkun__ »

rosndo wrote: post #266
tharkun__ wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would argue that: yes, it is immoral. Is it likely for you to get caught for insider trading? Probably not. Especially if you're Joe Blow and you make 10k on this. If you are Joe Blow making 10k also means you did not have a lot of "play money" to act upon overhearing some random conversation. Or you do but didn't trust it fully (how did you know it was 'material' and not just some guys at a business lunch 'boastin…

>I would argue that: yes, it is immoral. >Is it likely for you to get caught for insider trading? Probably not. Overhearing something in a restaurant and trading on it is not illegal insider trading. For the purposes of this conversation it would be useful for you to have the most basic understanding of what constitutes illegal insider trading.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding what I can find about this online. Please help me understand. Let's say Joe Blow in my example works as a janitor for said company. For the sake of argument, he's directly employed.

    There is no statutory definition of “insider trading”. As defined by the courts, it refers to purchasing or selling a security while in possession of material, non-public information concerning that security, where the information is obtained from a breach of fiduciary duty, or a duty arising from a relationship of trust or confidence.

    Obtaining the material information by way of a breach of duty or confidence is the key to an insider trading violation, but after decades of court rulings, it is almost impossible for a court to find that a duty was NOT breached in an insider trading case. Some duties are obvious – the CEO of the company, the CEO’s assistant, and every other employee owe a fiduciary duty to the company and if they use, or disclose, material non-public information, they are liable for insider trading, often even if they didn’t trade themselves.

    Over the last 10 years, the SEC and the courts have greatly expanded this definition, to include trading by individuals whose “relationship of trust” is so remote as to be non-existent, but that discussion is left for another day
https://www.seclaw.com/insider-trading/

Would he not count as "every other employee" in the above for some reason? He overhears a conversation between the CEO of his company and another company about a big deal while he's say fixing the heating in the conference room? Nevermind the likelyhood of that scenario and the really bad practice of discussing such matters in said conference room while he's there (or in a restaurant to go back to the other example but then said janitor would need to frequent the same one as the CEO of his company, which is also an unlikely scenario ;) )

Re: Twilio employees, associates charged with insider trading by SEC

#287

Post by ar_lan »

daenz wrote: post #57
kieselguhr_kid wrote: post #48

I work in billing software for a publicly traded software company and this is a constant temptation. I'm never gonna do it because I'm not gonna blow up my career for a relative pittance, but I can't tell you how many times I've been annoyed that I couldn't act on private information and make ~$100k or so. These guys are like the kids who saw the Tide Pod challenges and decided to actually eat the pods. I bet insider…

>I bet insider trading is not as fun when you're unemployed and bankrupt. Not just unemployed, likely unemployable by any reputable company in the industry. Also, good on you for having integrity, but honestly what you say is too much for the average person to be tempted with. Does anyone have a solution for lowering that temptation and making these scenarios less likely?

They can probably get a job at a regional paper sales company, though.

Re: Twilio employees, associates charged with insider trading by SEC

#288

Post by corentin88 »

eklitzke wrote: post #230
corentin88 wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s more likely to me that they talked about it internally (to colleagues?) and someone reported it to HR, the police or SEC directly.

It could also have been the case that they were just bragging to friends or people at bars/parties about it, but either way I agree that it's much more likely that someone heard about it and then tipped off the SEC.

Of course! It could be anyone, not just colleagues.

Re: Twilio employees, associates charged with insider trading by SEC

#289

Post by rcMgD2BwE72F »

economist6373 wrote: post #176
rcMgD2BwE72F wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes but it is one that insider trading incentivizes greatly.

This doesn’t make any sense. Such activities would be criminal regardless of insider trading. What difference could it possibly make if insider trading was legal? Should we maybe add more laws to forbid such activity in different creative ways, so instead of being doubly illegal it would be triply illegal? Crazy.

>Such activities would be criminal regardless of insider trading. What difference could it possibly make if insider trading was legal?

Killing your neighbors with a gun is illegal in both France and US? Here in France, one cannot purchase a gun. Guess what happens when you make gun sale as easy as possible?

Oh but people can own gun, they just should not use them illegally! Right?

Re: Twilio employees, associates charged with insider trading by SEC

#290

Post by lupire »

MichaelBurge wrote: post #267
fshbbdssbbgdd wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The “set it on fire” part seems like the part that you want to ban, regardless of whether insider trading is legal.

There are so many ways they could implement the same thing. K-mart could stop marking everything "on sale" 100% of the time and make the regular price the discounted price, so people don't feel like they're getting a good deal. Then their sales collapse and they go out of business, because consumers are robots with predictable emotions. Or the board could look for the absolute worst CEO they can find, thinking to the…

What your point? All of these cases are obvious frauds and the trading profit would be plenty of probable cause to investigate and convict.
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